This invention pertains to a method and device for improving the accuracy and enhancing the comfort of bow and arrow, rifle, pistol and shotgun shooters. The new device can also serve as an optical aid when performing a function primarily with one eye such as when a person is looking through the eyepiece of an microscope or a telescope or other monocular optical instrument.
In most, if not all cases, if an individual is born right handed, the right eye will be dominant and if born left handed, the left eye will be dominant. In many cases, as soon as left handedness is observed in an infant, the parents will influence the child to use the right hand to conform to the practice of the majority of the population. Thus, a substantial number of individuals who appear to be right handed at maturity are innately left handed. Forcibly changing handedness, however, does not produce a corresponding change in eye dominance so that there are a substantial number of individuals who are cross-dominant. This can be disadvantageous when attempting to perform a function that permits use of only one eye such as in aiming a weapon or looking into a monocular optical instrument. When aiming commonly used weapons such as pistols, shotguns and rifles, the shooter attempts to set the rear and front sights and the target point in alignment. Most rifles and shotguns are designed for use by right handed shooters who will rest the butt of the gun stock against their right shoulder and place their right eye behind the rear sight with the intention of using the right eye exclusively to align the front and rear sights and the target. If the shooter is left eye dominant, the brain influences the left eye to become involved in the sighting and inaccuracy in aiming results. To alleviate this problem to the extent possible, it is common practice for shooters to close the dominant left eye which, of course, results in the brain dictating that the right eye will take control. It is known, particularly among competitive shooters, that shooting with one eye closed has an adverse effect on accuracy. It results in loss of binocular vision, peripheral vision and depth perception. Loss of any one of these qualities will adversely affect the accuracy of trap shooters, target shooters or hunters. It is especially important for trap shooters to maintain peripheral vision and depth perception since a shot is fired when the moving clay pigeon or target comes into sight. The three qualities, however, should be preserved in any kind of shooting with a gun or bow and arrow.
Competitive pistol shooters who shoot at stationary targets are seriously handicapped by cross-dominance between eyes and hands. The competitive pistol shooter usually holds the pistol out with two arms extended at eye level. Even if the pistol shooter keeps both eyes open while aiming as is desirable, unconsciously, the sight and barrel of the pistol will be turned slightly as a result of the burden of alignment being accepted primarily by the dominant eye. Shooting accuracy, therefore, suffers.
It has also been established that closing one eye while letting the other do the work has adverse physiological effects. The capillary bed that supplies the retina tissue to which the optic nerve connects, is beneath the retina so light does not have to pass through blood. When one eye is closed voluntarily or otherwise for a short time, the brain brings about events that result in reduced blood flow to both eyes and this reduces visual acuity of the eye that is open and doing the work. This is another good reason for keeping both eyes open while aiming.
Many individuals among the population including shooters are not aware that their eyes and hands are cross-dominant because they have not become aware that it is easy to make the determination. As is known, a test for which eye is dominant simply involves holding a finger or a pencil, for example, upright with the arm fully extended and with both eyes aligning the pencil with a distant object. Then, the right eye can be closed. If, when the right eye is closed the pencil appears to shift out of alignment with the distant object, it was the right eye that was doing most of the work all the time and there is right eye dominance. The other part of the test is to close the left eye. If there is right eye dominance, then there will be no shift. Conversely, if the individual closes the left eye and a shift occurs, it is an indication of left eye dominance. For additional confirmation, the right eye is closed and there will be no shift if there is left eye dominance.
Some shooters have recognized that they have cross-dominance and they attempt to take measures to mitigate the disadvantage. Some shooters who are left eye dominant have obtained special weapons or, particularly, had a rifle or shotgun stock made that is adaptable for shooting on the left side so that the left dominant eye can be used. Some left eye dominant shooters will shoot with the butt of the gun stock on the right shoulder and use the weaker or non-dominant right eye for aiming while the left eye is covered with a black patch or, if glasses are used, opaque tape is applied to the left lens. When the lens is covered or the eye is completely overlayered with a patch, it is as if one is shooting with the non-dominant eye closed in which case binocular vision, depth perception and peripheral vision are lost. In any case, it has been shown that better shooting accuracy is obtained when a shooter masters keeping both eyes open even if there is no cross-dominance between the eyes and hands. A right eye dominant shooter, for instance, who correctly aims with the right eye and does not need to overcome a problem of cross-dominance is better off if both eyes are kept open when shooting. Some shooters who have no cross-dominance still cannot keep both eyes open because they experience double vision if they do so while aiming. They usually solve this problem by closing the non-dominant eye anyway.